Social comparison generated considerable interest and addressed a basic motivation for people to engage in attitude change. Festinger proposed that people change their attitudes not only because of the legitimacy of the arguments they hear but also to satisfy a basic motivational drive. In the social comparison view, people are motivated to influence others or to succumb to others’ influence in order to satisfy their drive to have correct and appropriate opinions. On an organisational level, understanding these principles can help mitigate financial repercussions that arise from negative employee behaviour, such as decreased productivity or higher turnover rates. Concurrently, the theory holds broader social importance, as it offers a framework for promoting fairness and justice in interpersonal interactions and relationships. By doing so, it aims to guide the regulation of both organisational outcomes and social justice (3).
Dissociating meat from its animal origins: A systematic literature review
Equity Theory provides a cognitive dissonance and addiction framework for understanding the dynamics of fairness and balance in relationships. When individuals perceive inequity or unfairness in their romantic partnerships, it can strain the relationship and lead to discord. Understanding and addressing equity concerns is vital for fostering healthy and thriving relationships.
What is the equity theory of motivation?
- The balanced exchange of support between family members was confirmed to determine the quality of relations (Sechrist et al., 2014).
- More than six decades of research in cognitive dissonance should make us confident that we can effect these translations productively.
- Cognitive dissonance theory began by postulating that pairs of cognitions can be either relevant or irrelevant to one another.
- The framework was applied to explain the relationship between the employees’ perception of fair procedures and rewards distribution on organisational citizenship behaviour.
- When individuals experience a sense of inequity, cognitive dissonance arises as they grapple with the conflicting thoughts and emotions stemming from the perception of unfairness.
- It also helps us understand better why people sometimes resist persuasion attempts (see discussion below), since some factor such as forewarning of persuasion has activated their thoughtful analysis of the positions being advocated.
When one of the dissonant elements is a behavior, the individual can change or eliminate the behavior. In all conditions, they then heard a very boring discussion about sex in lower animals. They were asked to rate how interesting they had found the discussion and how interesting they had found the people involved in it. Female participants were informed they would be helping out in a study funded by several manufacturers. Participants were also told that they would receive one of the products at the end of the experiment to compensate for their time and effort.
The Psychological Perspective of Equity Theory
Critical skills can be over-ridden through repetition, fixation or constant mimicry, or through techniques that induce euphoria. Eyes-closed visualizations and “guided meditation” techniques can heighten suggestibility, making it easier to insert thoughts and beliefs into members. However, despite using different criteria to create distinctions between human and animal mentality, SD and TM show similarities in that they likely depend upon the same belief formation processes.
When employees perceive a lack of fairness, it can lead to a range of negative outcomes, such as reduced job satisfaction, decreased motivation, and even higher turnover rates. Managers and organizations need to pay close attention to equity perceptions to foster a positive and productive work environment. When there is a high level of trust between parties, perceived inequities may be more easily overlooked or forgiven.
It can, hence, be argued that they had a clear association between meat and animals. During the mid-19th century, a combination of factors, such as industrialization, urbanization, population growth and increased purchasing power opened up for large-scale, intensive raising and slaughtering of animals for meat production purposes (Segers, 2012). Consequently, an increasing number of people became largely separated from animals used in food production and, thus, had less contact with the animals they consumed.
Social Psychology, Theories of
Just as theories describe how familiar others are liked, perhaps because easily understood, other theories emphasize dislike of dissimilar others, as in theories of stigma offered separately by Goffman, Jones, and Katz. Category-based theories of impression formation (Sect. 3.1) describe how negative out-group categories stimulate negative understanding. Mere knowledge of the stereotypes about one’s group creates stereotype threat (Steele), undermining the performance of distracted, frustrated, targets of stereotyping. Members are also taught emotion-stopping techniques — especially to block feelings of homesickness, frustration towards leadership, illness, distress, and doubts.
Based on this intellectual tradition, Festinger was able to predict the magnitude of dissonance in different situations. The theoretical controversy notwithstanding, the hypocrisy paradigm propelled dissonance research into a new era. By invoking memories of the past as the source of potential aversive consequences, cognitive dissonance theory can become the theoretical basis for efforts to change behaviors in a way that is supportive of greater physical and mental health. The second, and perhaps most iconoclast contribution was its apparent reversal of the predictions that would be made by learning theories.
- In a series of studies, we found that witnesses bolstered their own attitudes and intentions to use sunscreen, and also purchased more sunscreen, after observing the admission of hypocrisy by the fellow student.
- It was incorporated into Equity Theory based on earlier evidence which revealed that employees tend to perceive a distribution of rewards as unfair if they find that their contributions surpass those of their peers within the same organisational division.
- Furthermore, Equity Theory can also influence teamwork and collaboration within an organization.
- An unethical group or individual uses outright, indefensible lies, withholding vital information, or distorting information to make it appear more acceptable and often all three of these tactics.
- When one of the dissonant elements is a behavior, the individual can change or eliminate the behavior.
Conversely, those who have built up a longer tenure either in their role or within the same company tend to use internal benchmarks or colleague comparisons as their measure for fairness. Employees with less experience, however, are likely to rely on their own personal knowledge and understanding when assessing what is fair. Drawing on pre-existing research in both sociology and psychology, Adams reasoned that the concept of equity goes beyond the simple economic measurements of being overpaid or underpaid. Instead, it involves intricate cognitive and psychological processes that are influenced by social context. This means that the assessment of what is deemed ‘fair‘ or ‘unfair‘ is socially constructed and is more nuanced than straightforward financial calculations.
- When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.
- Perceived distributive justice refers to the perception that the amount of reward for the input in exchange is fair.
- After engaging in the campaigning, the person may experience dissonance in connection with having publicly supported a candidate whom he or she did not previous like very much and try to reduce the dissonance by deciding that he or she really likes the candidate.
- The major body of knowledge has been generated in the domain of organisational psychology.
1 Cognitive dissonance theory
DBIs have been criticized on theoretical grounds for using a variety of mechanisms to produce outcome changes and not solely dissonance-induction techniques. For example, DBI also includes behavioral exposure and positive body affirmations, components of Cash’s cognitive behavioral therapy for body image disturbance, in addition to counter-attitudinal dissonance techniques. Roehrig and colleagues conducted a study to determine if the dissonance-induction techniques alone were sufficient to produce the changes observed in the full intervention (which included both the dissonance techniques and the behavioral techniques). They found that the dissonance-induction techniques did indeed produce significant reductions in thin-ideal internalization and bulimic pathology that were equivalent to those produced in the full intervention. Stice and colleagues found that reductions in thin-ideal internalization often preceded reductions in the negative outcome variables (i.e., body dissatisfaction, eating pathology) but only in the DBI group.